Reminding Pakistan that its prime minister, Imran Khan, had last year admitted that Pakistan still hosts 30,000 to 40,000 terrorists, India on Friday said Islamabad's attempts to "create a divide in the traditional and friendly relations between the people of India and Afghanistan will not succeed". This came a day after Pakistan accused New Delhi of distorting the contents of a report on terrorism by the United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team. "This reveals that India's agenda is to create complications for the Afghan peace process," Pakistan's foreign ministry had said. The Ministry of External Affairs' official spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan would do well to recall that their prime minister admitted last year that Pakistan still hosts 30,000 to 40,000 terrorists. Pakistan's leadership is also on record acknowledging that in the past. terrorists had used the country's soil to carry out terror attacks on other countries." He said the UN Security Council's Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Report only reiterated what Khan already admitted to. "Instead of casting aspersions on the report, Pakistan should introspect and put an end to any kind of support for terrorism emanating from territories under its control. The UN and the international community is well acquainted with the reality that Pakistan is the nerve centre of terrorism. It houses one of the largest numbers of UN-designated terrorists and terrorist entities. Its fallacious attempts to point fingers at others cannot deflect attention from the facts on the ground," he said. The MEA spokesperson further said the people of Afghanistan and the international community are well aware of "who the 'spoiler' is, and who is sheltering, training, arming and financing terrorists and sponsoring violence against innocent Afghans and members of the international community". On June 2, India had expressed "serious concern" over a United Nations report which stated that a large number of foreign terrorist fighters, including up to 6,500 Pakistan nationals, are operating in Afghanistan. He had said this "vindicates India's long-standing position that Pakistan remains the epicentre of international terrorism". "That proscribed terrorist entities and individuals continue to enjoy safe havens and recruit, train, arm, finance and operate with impunity from Pakistan with state support. They inflict violence and spread terrorism in the region and other parts of the world," he had said. "Pakistan has failed in fulfilling its international obligations, including under relevant UNSC resolutions and the Financial Action Task Force, to put an end to support to terrorism emanating from territories under its control. The international community should hold Pakistan accountable and seek sustained, verifiable and irreversible action by Pakistan against terrorism," the MEA spokesperson had said.
